ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator
Automotive Problems Intensify A hard rain is gonna fall (around March 23) Misdirected modems Witch hunts, or Where does the buck stop? Spells and Spirits Info on RISKS (comp.risks)
Automotive Problems IntensifyThe National Highway Trafic Safety Administration has expanded its investigation into the sudden acceleration of automobiles to include vehicles made by six manufacturers. The expanded inquiry involves 1.4 milion mid-size and full-size cars made by Ford Motor Co (1984-85 model years), 100,000 Audit model 5000 cars (1984-85), 350,000 280Z and 380Z Nissan cars (1980-85), 400,000 Alliance and Encore cars made for American Motors-Renault (1983-85), and 140,000 Toyota Cressida luxury cars (1981-84). [See today's NY Times, SF Chron, etc.] We have reported here previously on effects of radio-frequency interference on automobile microprocessors (e.g., RISK-1.23 and 24). This sounds like lots more of the same. Is the same chip-set involved, or is this a new kind of common-mode fault across different chip manufacturers? Peter
A hard rain is gonna fall (around March 23)According to "Das Bild", a West German newspaper, a Soviet spy satellite has lost its steering capability and will impact between March 21 and March 25. Cosmos 1714, launched December 28, is presumably powered by an atomic power plant. The Soviets have not (as far as I know) commented on this yet.
misdirected modems
Twice recently, computers at our company (Hewlett-Packard) have been the
embarrassing causes of telephonic annoyance. Phone numbers entered
incorrectly in uucp L.sys files, due to typos or misunderstandings, have
led to systems repeatedly calling private telephones in Fort Collins.
The recipients of such calls, understandably annoyed, have had to
backtrack through Mountain Bell to discover the cause.
I bet this happens a lot more than anyone realizes or admits.
Alan Silverstein, Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Systems Division, Colorado
{ihnp4 | hplabs}!hpfcla!ajs, 303-226-3800 x3053, N 40 31'31" W 105 00'43"
Witch hunts, or Where does the buck stop?I note with interest that we have yet to hear from anyone who performed system safety analyses on the solid rocket booster system. Where are the system safety engineers who analyzed this design?
Spells and Spirits
The comment about spells and spirits in the RISKS 2.13 reminded me of a set
of papers from Princeton that readers of this forum might be interested in.
First, the references:
"The Persistent Paradox of Psychic Phenomena: An Engineering Perspective"
Robert G. Jahn, Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol 70, No. 2, Feb. 1982
"Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research"
R.G. Jahn, B.J. Dunne, and R.D. Nelson, technical note PEAR 84002
"An REG Experiment with Large Data Base Capability, III: Operator
Related Anamolies"
R.D. Nelson, B.J. Dunne, R.G. Jahn, technical note PEAR 84003
All three papers describe experiments in which humans attempt to influence
the distribution of random events using 'psychic' means. According to the
authors, the results indicate that there ARE deviations that range in
likelihood from 10^-4 to 10^-7. I will not attempt to summarize any
further, interested readers should contact the authors directly at:
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
School of Engineering/ Applied Science
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
I would like to type in the abstracts, however, the latter two papers
explicitly "withhold the right to reprint or quotation".
The abstract for the IEEE paper follows:
Although a variety of so-called psychic phenomena have attracted man's
attention throughout recorded history, organized scholarly effort to
comprehed such effects is just one century old, and systematic academic
research roughly half that age. Over recent years, a sizeable spectrum of
evidence has been brought forth from reputable laboratories in several
disciplines to suggest that at times himan consciousness can acquire
information inaccessible by any known physical mechanism (ESP), and can
influence the behavior of physical systems or processes (PK), but even the
most rigorous and sophisticated of these studies display a characteristic
dilemma: The experimental results are rarely replicable in the strict
scientific sense, but the anomalous yields are well beyond chance
expectations and a number of common features thread through the broad range
of reported effects. Various attempts at theoretical modeling have so far
shown little functional value in explicating experimental results, but have
served to stimulate fundamental re-examination of the role of consciousness
in the determination of physical reality. Further careful study of this
formidable field seems justified, but only within the context of very well
conceived and technically impeccable experiments of large data-base
capability, with disciplined attention to the pertinent aesthetic factors,
and with more constructive involvement of the critical community.
Disclaimer: I don't currently hold an opinion on the validity of the
experiments described in these papers. I do, however, agree that there
are phenomena which 'modern science' has no satisfactory explanation.
-- Steve
[I don't expect that RISKS will go lurching off in this direction.
But, nevertheless, there is certainly a wide collection of issues
related to risks to the public in the use of computer systems.
An intriguing bit of science fiction along that line is the old novel
by Ingo Swann, Star Fires. PGN]
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